A novel about a young military lawyer ("Fitz") who is assigned to defend court-martials that are then going forward at the First Marine Aircraft Wing in Southeast Asia in 1973, towards the end of the Vietnam Conflict. At the time, Black-White race relations in the Marine Corps were facing new challenges. Fitz finds his passion in defending young Black Marines against systemic racism that was often the source of the charges being tried.
This is also a coming-of-age story as to how Fitz decides to abandon his conservative ways from having grown up in New England, over-analyzing everything in his life up to this point. Fitz decides to exorcise his Catholic guilt and start embracing everything, including moving off base with a wonderful Chinese-Japanese lady of the evening ("Yuasan").
As for Fitz, Yuasan wants to marry him; his CO respects him; his XO wants to kill him; all of the prosecutors at the Law Center want to crush him; and a conservative "under the radar" group of Senior Marine officers and noncommissioned officers are bent upon revenge.